Nigerian fintech startup Miden is a debit card issuing platform for businesses in Africa, allowing enterprise customers to issue cards and other financial products to their employees and customers.
Founded in late-2022 by Dom Okiemute and Ini Udoh, Miden allows businesses to issue virtual cards to their customers through its API, empowering businesses to seamlessly provide a range of financial products.
Cards, virtual or otherwise, are pivotal to fintech companies in helping them increase volumes and build up their customer bases, but the major card schemes are usually out of reach to them and building a card integration system with a bank can take up to a year. Miden overcomes these challenges with its drag-and-drop API, which lets businesses issue their own virtual cards within weeks.
Okiemute told Disrupt Africa this gave businesses the ability to launch financial products as quickly as possible, and Miden has already issued over 100,000 cards in four countries.
“Our uptake has been great, we have top fintechs, travel agencies and commerce firms plugged in and issuing on our programme today,” Okiemute said, adding that Miden has crossed US$1.5 million in ARR. “We currently process a couple of billion naira in volume monthly.”
Disrupt Africa reported last month the previously bootstrapped startup was one of three African ventures selected for the latest batch of the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator, securing in the process US$500,000 in funding that will be used to further expand, though the team is keeping tight-lipped on detailed plans.
“We are currently profitable because we are lean and worked on our unit economics,” Okiemute said. He noted regulatory challenges as being the main ones faced by Miden, though it is slowly making progress.
“We are doing it right now, and we have acquired two of our roadmap licenses,” he said.
